Embodiments of the present invention relate generally to methods and systems for processing and routing of messages and information in a computer network and more particularly to composition of elements in a communication session with session sharing.
As computer networks become evermore complex, and are further extended to include functionality for wireless and mobile devices, there is an increasing need to orchestrate interaction between the capabilities of the various components across the network. The Service Capability Interaction Manager (SCIM) was introduced (by the Third Generation Partnership Project, or “3GPP”) as a functional architecture for the provisioning of services. A SCIM typically is used to orchestrate the delivery of services among different servers including application server platforms. A SCIM component can be programmed or configured to dictate the sequence of services or operations used to process a communication session.
However, a SCIM performs composition and orchestration of a communication session in a top-down type approach wherein the orchestration and session state are controlled at a high level, i.e., in the application session or service layer, removed from the applications and/or protocol level components participating in the session, i.e., the protocol session layer. That is, session state sharing between components such as various protocol session level components is not performed. As a result, if a protocol session level component or other element participating in a communication session performs some processing that affects the state of the communication session, that change is not shared between other such components. Rather, the change must be propagated back up to the orchestrator which then directs the other elements. In fact, it is generally not possible for protocol session level components to share such communication session state or context information since programming models for the protocol session level do not allow such sharing. Such an approach can be less efficient or desirable than allowing the elements of the architecture to share the session state information and/or context of the communication session and perform composition. Hence, there is a need for improved methods and systems for composition of elements in a communication session with session sharing.